


The Night Before (Hernan’s birthday).

by Gangstertogangster



Category: Luke Cage - Fandom, The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Gen, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:28:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24150592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gangstertogangster/pseuds/Gangstertogangster
Summary: Hernan’s birthday is May 11, and I started writing this based on that. His and Mariah’s daughter decides to put her baking skills to work and make him something special.As always, Richard Fisk is written using Irisofparadise’s headcanons, and the fic takes place in our Happy Domestic AU
Relationships: Shades Alvarez/Mariah Dillard
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	The Night Before (Hernan’s birthday).

**Author's Note:**

  * For [IrisofParadise](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IrisofParadise/gifts).



“Baking? We can just pay to have a cake made, and you need to focus on homework,” Mariah pointed out.

Honor rolled her eyes. “Mami, you know I wanna make papi a special cake.”

Richard kept his head down, not really knowing what to say. He hoped Mrs. Stokes-Alvarez wouldn’t tease him.

“You two better make sure this kitchen is pristine by the time we come back from this dinner,” Mariah warned.

Honor nodded, nudged Richard hard in the side to do the same.

“How’s Ms. Borscht, Richard? Any luck?”

Richard turned red as a beet. Honor laughed so hard she started crying.

“Mami, she STILL doesn’t know!” Honor exclaimed.

Mariah was laughing now too. Richard felt so mortified.

Hernan came down the stairs, said, “What’s so funny?”

“Rich can’t get with Vasya even still!” Honor giggled.

Hernan smiled politely, said to Richard with a chuckle, “Better luck next time.”

“Hernan, you used to creep around me all the time, leave the boy alone!” Mariah teased.

Hernan was now turning a little red.He went over and kissed Honor goodbye on the forehead, gave Richard a steely glance, then went towards the door. Mariah in turn gave honor a kiss and followed her husband out the door of the brownstone.

Honor couldn’t help continuing to laugh at Richard.

Richard shot back, “Hey, not like you’re any closer to Lucy.”

Honor shoved him. “If you tell mami and papi I will have to poison you with my sister’s arsenic.”

Richard said, “Believe me, I don’t wanna talk to Hernan, and Tilda won’t let you touch that stuff.”

Honor snorted, “Whatever, dummy.”

She went to the kitchen, beckoning Richard to follow her. She got out the ingredients. Richard’s eyes widened when he saw the rum extract.

“Honor what the hell kind of cake is this exactly?”

Honor smiled, said, “it’s gonna be pineapple coconut layer cake with rum buttercream.”

Richard tilted his head, trying to understand a little better. “So how are you gonna fit pineapple into this?”

“In the filling, cabrón,” Honor answered, “it’s gonna taste like a piña colada, at least that’s the goal.”

“Does Hernan like piña coladas?” Richard asked.

“Who cares, he’s gonna like this cake,” Honor tossed out.

“How do you know?” Richard teased.

Honor gave him the stink eye. She soon busied herself with making the cake layers. Richard tried to sneak some batter once she combined the wet and dry ingredients, but Honor snatched the bowl away.

“Dude, why?” Richard asked, salty.

“Because you questioned my papi loving this cake,” Honor answered.

Richard rolled his eyes. “That was a joke and you know it,” he said.

Honor smirked. Richard gave her his best pleading puppy dog eyes. Honor tried to hold out as long as she could but relented.

“Fine, dumbass. You make me sick, you know that?” Honor said, thrusting the bowl at him.

Richard didn’t hesitate to eat the batter with a spoon like it was pudding.

They passed the time listening to Spotify and dancing. Honor jokingly grinded against him white Richard mocked being sexy.

“If your parents come back and Hernan sees…” Richard laughed.

“He’s not gonna see,” Honor said, “besides, he knows I’m gay as hell. He just hates your ass no matter what.”

Richard groaned. “I wanna practice for if I ever go this with Vasya,” he mused.

Honor groaned loudly. “That ain’t happening,” she said.

Mariah and Hernan were at a new Harlem restaurant, quietly eating their meals. It was such a still atmosphere. They could both feel people staring at them from every corner. Aside from the fact that most of the other diners were white, there was the age difference everyone saw. The other couples were hipster types, and no one seemed visibly older than the other. 

Mariah smiled at her husband as he looked uncomfortably around.

“Hernan, hey. Hernan, it don’t matter,” she said as she caressed his thigh under the table.

“Yeah,” Hernan replied, not entirely convinced. She leaned in and kissed him.

Mariah frowned at her plate, saying, “This food is nasty, we paid too much for this.”

Hernan laughed.

He turned serious again when he wondered aloud, “Why is that Fisk kid over on a school night?”

“You’re paranoid,” Mariah answered.

“Wilson Fisk is erratic...”

“So am I,” Mariah said.

“Difference is I trust you," Hernan answered. 

"This is his kid, more Vanessa than Wilson. Richard ain't gonna do shit." 

Hernan tried to turn back to his pretentious entree. The plates were small as hell so he didn't have much to finish.

Mariah tried again, saying, “Fisk is helping us stay stacked, and you know Richard is Honor’s best friend. As long as Fisk’s money stays green and our daughter doesn’t suddenly try being straight, I see no harm.”

Hernan looked skeptical. Mariah said, “Look, she’s got a best friend. The closest I had to that before I got to Howard was Tommy.”

"He was your boyfriend," Hernan retorted. 

Mariah rolled her eyes, folded her napkin over her plate to indicate a finished meal. She waved the waiter over for the bill. 

"We want our daughter to have friends that aren't intimate, don't you want that?" Mariah asked after the waiter collected the booklet with the card. 

"Yeah," Hernan said, not entirely convinced. 

Mariah inched closer to her husband and said, "Relax, baby. Besides, the night is still young." 

“What do you mean,” Hernan asked.

“I mean I booked us a hotel for the night.”

“We gotta get back for Honor…”

“Hey, it’s your birthday tomorrow and we don’t have time to celebrate. And we don’t need to worry about any interruptions,” Mariah assured her husband.

Hernan, still not convinced, said, “Maybe we should check on them, they’re still kids and I don’t want them getting into…”

Mariah raised an eyebrow at him. Then her hand went back to his thigh under the table. “I worry about her too. Richard won’t do shit. We have a capable daughter who can handle herself. She has our numbers, Tilda’s, Alex’s, Comanche’s, White Wesley’s…”

Hernan turned to her, leaned in to kiss her, but she moved back a little.

“What do you say we go right now, bag dinner?”

Hernan smiled, breathed a relieved sigh. Lately, they did have less opportunities to be particularly intimate. He purred, “I thought you’d never ask.”

Honor let Richard lick the bowls of the pineapple filling and rum buttercream once she finished with both. Luckily there was plenty of frosting since she always made extra, so as to thoroughly ice the cake. Richard absolutely loved icing the best.

The assembled cake was carefully put away in the fridge. Honor and Richard fist-bumped to commemorate this.

“I’ve never had a piña colada before,” Richard confessed.

Honor looked at him with mock shock. “How am I not surprised”, she laughed. Then she turned to him and asked, “Wanna make some?”

Richard shivered, immediately asked, “What if your parents come home and catch us?”

“Don’t worry so much, Rich! I told mami to keep papi distracted tonight. She booked a hotel room. We are good, man.”

Richard snorted at that, resuming licking the bowls.

“What?” Honor impatiently asked.

Richard said though his laughter, “Your parents are definitely celebrating tonight…”

Honor shoved him, scolding, “Shut up, nasty.”

Richard kept pawing through the bowls with his fingers, Honor visibly disgusted.

She got up and went to the fridge, took out some rum. Richard’s eyes widened, surprised that Honor got liquor that wasn’t locked up in the cabinet.

Honor saw this and assured him, “I told mom I needed rum for baking so she took it out for me. Which I didn’t really, I got the extract.”

Richard said, “Damn, you got balls.”

Honor laughed. She got out the blender. Got the ice, rum, coconut milk, pineapple juice, ice, and the maraschino cherries.

Richard was always amazed at how the Stokes-Alvarez household always had the right ingredients, despite their refrigerator not being particularly big. Honor always said it was because they knew how to shop.

She mixed their drinks, gave Richard his. He rarely drank so he got a bit of a buzz as well as a brain freeze.

Honor rubbed at her head, getting a brain freeze as well. Richard smiled, not feeling so alone.

Honor noticed and said, “I will still spit in your drink, if you’re not careful.”

Richard just threw his maraschino cherry at her. She threw hers at him. He scrambled for the cherry jar but she snatched it out of his grasp. She quickly put it away.

“You are not about to wreck the kitchen floor and get my ass in trouble,” Honor scolded.

“You started it,” Richard reminded her.

Honor sucked her teeth at him, and Richard just rolled his eyes.

He folded his arms, defiant.

Honor sighed and said, “Fine, sorry.”

Richard laughed, “It’s fine, I want payback later in the week.”

Honor scoffed, “Good luck with that.”

Richard pantomimed relief and sarcastically exclaimed, “Thank you!”

Honor gave him the finger, and he gave it right back.

She put on her cleaning playlist and they got to work cleaning up the island, the counters, the oven. They did the dishes and put everything back. She made them some more piña coladas to celebrate finishing.

They went over to the TV to binge bad reality TV.

When Mariah and Henan finally returned home, they found Honor and Richard sleeping on the couch with the TV still on, Honor’s legs sprawled across Richard’s lap.

Hernan instinctively scoffed, and Mariah held his hand in the way he did for her, the subliminal message of “keep calm.”

“If they did anything wrong it was leaving that TV on,” Mariah whispered to him.

Hernan nodded, whispered back, “You’re right.”

He went over, collected the remote from beneath Richard’s fingers, turned off the TV. He kissed his daughter’s forehead, whispered, “buenas noches mami.”

Mariah felt a little rush of bliss seeing her husband go over to her daughter like that, and went upstairs before he could see it.


End file.
